She's Alive
by venezuelantiny12
Summary: I started this fanfic a while ago and posted a few chapters, however I decided to improve it, cover some holes in the story line, etc. The summary is inside, please read it and if you like the idea, please leve a comment and follow this fanfic to its end. Thanks a lot! XOXO
1. Chapter 0

_Hey, guys! Here´s the summary for **"She´s Alive"**. Hope you like it!_

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Chapter 0

"Summary"

For two years, Cammie and her friends (Zach, Grant, Bex, Liz, Jonas, Macey and Preston) made a name for themselves in the CIA, and the other agencies, as some of the best spies in the world. They got the most exciting and difficult missions, whether they were covert, rescue or recovery missions, and even assassinations.

At the end of 2010 Cammie took on her most challenging mission yet, infiltrate a terrorist cell in the Middle East with plans to damage the American territory. Being the fearless spy that everyone knew, she took on the assignment without a second thought and left her life behind, the same way she did every few months, and knew that she would be back in a couple of months. She made a list of everyone she would come back for: her parents (both well known agents within the agency), her brother Grant, her friends, her boyfriend Josh and her bestest friend Zach.

About a month into her mission, Cammie missed her weekly check-up and, being the high profile case they had given her, every single agent in the loop went out of their way to find out what had happened, but they turned out with nothing, so Cammie was presumed dead officially the day she missed her check-up, they gave her the funeral the give to every other agent, the star on the wall with her name and all that jazz.

Those news turned her family´s and friends´ worlds upside down. They all went through some rough patches, some transferred from the agency and relationships were broken.

However, five years later, in the beginning of 2016 Preston leads a team to apprehend the responsible of a hacking in one of the agencies safe houses in the Middle East, and they are all surprised to find out that the hacker is none other than the famous Cammie "the Chameleon" Morgan.

Her return to the world of the living not only shocks her family and friends, but her as well, as she realizes what her ambition has done to her world. She'll have to accept and adapt to all the changes she encounters in her return as well as make up for all the wrongs that have happened in the past five years.

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 _I´ll try nd post the next chapter in the next couple of days. I´d love to know what you think of the idea of the story so please leave a comment!_

 _Lots of love,_

 _venezuelantiny12_


	2. Chapter 1

Hey, guys! Sorry for going on that long hiatus and leave you waiting to see how this story went. I changed the format from before, but still, I really hope you like it!

Disclaimer: all characters belong to Ally Carter, except for the one I made up. (In this chapter: Marshall and Robin)

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Chapter 1

*Preston´s POV*

I saw the doorknob start to turn and I prepared myself for the possibility of him trying to escape. But what came through that door knocked me so far off my game that I felt I'd frozen from the inside out, just like in my dream.

16 Hours Earlier

The alarm went off the moment the chair she threw broke the window´s glass. She grabbed one of the ropes lying around on the floor and tied one of its ends to a beam. She pulled hard on it to make sure the knot would hold and ran to the edge of the floor, right were a floor-to-ceiling window stood ten seconds ago, and threw the rope outside. She turned around and did the same thing with another rope, her blonde hair standing up in the darkness with the agility of a cat, and when she was done she came over to me and helped me get up.

"How bad is it?"She asked as she put my arm around her neck and pulled me off of the floor. I grunted when she pulled, the effort really hurt. "Oh God, I´m sorry."She apologized, as if the whole thing was her fault; I was the dumbass who got himself shot during a recon mission.

"It isn´t hurting so much anymore, but still," I shrugged, "a gunshot´s a gunshot, Cammie."Honestly, the woman had been shot like six times and still had to ask how it felt to get hit by a bullet ´cause, I quote: 'every time she gets shot it´s in a full on adrenaline moment so she doesn´t feel it.' She makes the recovery in a third of the time expected and is back on the job a week later. Seriously, sometimes it´s ridiculous how immune she is to these things. By 'these things', I mean your everyday spy occupational hazards: getting shot, not having time for relationships or family, having to be so many persons that I sometimes got them confused. I just couldn´t believe it. She had been in a relationship with this guy from the FBI for almost two years and none of us had any idea how they were doing it. They saw each other whenever she wasn´t undercover (which was every four months more or less) and we didn´t really like him, so every time we were hanging out we told her not to tell him to come. My point is, it´s hard enough having a relationship with someone from the agency (believe me, I know), so how did she make it work with a guy who worked for a system completely different from ours, and with a rivalry between the agencies that ran deeper than the bonds of two old gossipy ladies.

"Hey,"she huffed, "how would I know how much it hurts?"She joked at me. "I don´t feel pain when I get shot, remember?"I turned to look at her and saw her grinning from one ear to the other.

"You must think you´re hilarious, don´t you?"I asked sarcastically.

"Actually," she said while tapping her chin with her fingers, "I´m gonna answer yes, yes I do think I´m hilarious."She replied in the same tone I had used with her.

I loved it when we joked around like this. Yes, you might say we often did it in the lest appropriate situations (like this one), but it´s what made us ourselves, Cammie and Preston, one of the best partnerships within the agency, except maybe from hers with her brother Grant, or with her best friends Bex and Zach.

"So, what´s the plan, Miss Invincible? Jump out the window?"I asked her. Her plans were always a bit too farfetched, so I thought it weird that our escape didn´t involve a submarine or catching a plane The Dark Knight style.

"You forgot about the part where we run for the hills after we hit the ground." She added all business in her tone. That´s how I knew she was serious.

"Oh, OK."I said, a little disappointed at the simplicity of our escape.

We reached the opening and Cammie helped me lean against the window frame. She let go of me and bent down to grab the ropes. She took out her pocket knife and cut out two strips from a sailcloth that was laying on the floor, unused. She wrapped one around her left hand and took a hold on the rope with that hand so she wouldn´t burn her hand on the way down, gave me the other one so that I would do the same. She then handed me one of the ropes. She turned her back to the hole in the wall, gave me one last smug look and said, "See you down there." She winked and jumped backwards, the way they taught us at the academy, but her grip on the rope mustn´t have been strong enough ´cause when the momentum of the jump was over she still went down, but without any hands on the rope. I saw her fall six stories to her death, and when her body hit the pavement I swear I heard her bones break.

"Cammie!"I yelled. I felt frozen. My mind couldn´t respond to what my eyes had just seen, luckily my body could. So I did the exact same thing she did, but with a tighter grip on the rope than the one I had before and jumped. I was next to her in a matter of seconds, admiring her broken corpse.

Her eyes were open. There was blood coming out of her nose and mouth, which was gaping a little. Her arms and legs were laying in a way that no living person would find comfortable, so I knew for sure she had to be dead. What amazed me most of all, was how strange her face looked. I mean, I didn´t see a single flaw in it (not that I ever saw any), but I also couldn´t see a single trace of emotion, her mouth was nowhere near a smile, the light from her eyes was gone. Everything that made her Cammie was gone. In front of me was nothing but the sheath that my best friend used as a body.

I bent down to close her eyelids with my fingertips and realized everything I had supposed before was true. I didn´t feel anything but disgust at this-this _thing_ laying in front of me. Thins thing that was-used to be my best friend. I took my hand off from her body and I sat next to her, hands on my knees, and my head between them, eyes closed.

I couldn´t believe what had just happened. We were joking around just five minutes ago. I couldn´t even remember the last words I had spoken to her, and it had just happened. I felt like there was a hurricane of emotions taking place inside my body. My living body, different from hers in so many ways right now. The weirdest thing I felt was this sense of déjà-vu. Like I had been in this exact same situation a thousand times before, but I had no idea why.

I felt a little breeze rustle my hair, so I lifted my head as to let the fresh air hit my face. I opened my eyes and found it not surprising at all to see Cammie facing me, instead of the sky, with her eyes wide open, instead of closed as I had arranged them before.

"Seriously, Pres."She said. "Aren´t you tired of dreaming this over and over again?"She asked. And she was right, I remembered. I started having this dream when Joe told us she had been officially presumed dead in action and that they had no idea what had happened to her. So my mind created this alternate fate for her from our last mission together.

Everything that happened was pretty much the same. I´d been shot, she broke a window, we both jumped, but no one died. We walked for days, her carrying me most of the time ´cause I couldn´t walk straight until we reached our safe house and we called it in. We came back home, got briefed and I started my recovery. Her on the other hand, being as restless as she was, went ahead and took a covert mission: infiltrate a cell in the Middle East and try and find out what their plans were. But everyone knows how that ended: an empty coffin buried in the ground with her name carved on s stone on top of it.

I shrugged and gave my Subconscious Cammie my most honest answer. "I just keep thinking that if it had been this way everyone would have had a better time accepting it. We don´t know what happened, Cammie."I tried to explain. "If you had died during this mission, your last mission before leaving, I would have called it in, everyone could have said their goodbyes the way it´s supposed to be and we probably would have cremated you and spread your ashes-I don´t know, wherever."I finished.

"OK, let me see if I get it."She started. "You´re mad because I didn´t die in the stupidest way possible?"She suggested. I stared into her eyes for a while, the eyes I remembered as cornflower blue and was mesmerized by how distracting they could be.

"It just feels like you took the chance for us to do things the right way."I admitted. And her response was a look of incomprehension.

"Oh, I´m sorry."She finally said in a tone that sounded so indifferent to me I started getting mad. How could she not get it? "Hey! Don´t get mad at me!"She yelled. "You know perfectly well why I'm not reacting the way you want me to!"And even though I didn´t want to admit it, she was right.

"You never do-did anything I expected or wanted you to do."I said. "You were your own person no matter what everyone else thought."I finished.

"And there´s the same conclusion we reach every time you put me in this situation."She said. "You think I wanted to die when I was twenty-motherfucking-years old? You think I wanted to leave Josh or any of you behind? You think I wanted my name on The Wall of The Fallen with not even a twelfth of the missions I expected to have completed before I died? And, most importantly, you honestly think I would have been stupid enough as to not hold on to the rope tight enough and propel to my death?"She said it all with such poison in her voice I had to look away. I couldn´t bear to have it all directed at me. "Give me a little credit. And look at me when I´m talking to you."She ordered me, and I did as told. "You want this to stop?"She asked me.

"Yes, I can´t take it when you get like this."I answered.

"Then you know what you have to do."She said. "You gotta move on, pal." And finally she said the words I didn´t want to hear, no matter how true they were. "I know it´s gonna be hard, but-"

"No, you don´t!"I responded impulsively. "You have no idea how hard it´s gonna be ´cause you´re dead, Cammie. You. Are. Dead."I finished.

"You do realize you´re talking to your subconscious, right?"She indicated. "This, all this stuff you´re telling me right now, you shouldn´t be saying it to _me,_ but to _her._ "

"What do you mean?"I asked.

"I mean what I always mean, you dumbass."She sighted. "Instead of talking to your dreams, go talk to the real Cammie."She said.

"But she´s dead."I said back.

"Really? I had no idea."She said sarcastically. "Alright, let´s take it slow then. What´s the closest thing to Cammie right now?"She asked. "And your subconscious is not the right option."She clarified. So I did as told and started thinking. We had pictures of her, but that didn´t seem like the right option either. So I started thinking of something symbolic, like her name on the Wall or-

"Her grave!"I said. "That´s it, isn´t it? I should say this stuff to her grave."

"Yeap."She agreed. "But before you go do that I'm gonna give you a little advice." She said. So I leaned in as to hear her better. "You ready?" She asked and I nodded. "Wake the hell up and answer you damn phone! It´s been going off for the past ten minutes!" She slapped me right across the face and my eyes shot open.

The first thing I saw was a girl staring down at me. She looked about my age and was wearing my shirt. Crap. This was the girl I´d picked up at the bar last night and I had no idea what the hell her name was. I´m pretty sure it was something with an M. Melissa, maybe? She looked Latina, though, so maybe it was something more like Maria or Martina. Crap. Still nothing.

The second thing I saw was that her lips were moving, so I decided I should probably start listening to what she was saying instead of trying to remember what her name was. I´d figure that part later.

"-going off for the past ten minutes!" She said in a squeaky voice. Crap. She has a squeaky voice. I really have to start listening to these women when they start babbling about their childhood, but not to what they´re saying, to what they sound like. "How could it not wake you up? It´s so loud! Why do you have a ringtone so loud if you´re not even gonna hear it? Plus it´s so annoying! Get a catchy song or something, not that stupid melody! Hello?" She snapped her fingers in my face. Girl was lucky I was half asleep, or else she would never have been able to snap her finger in anyone´s face again. Ever. "Are you listening to me? Please, pick it up! It´s three o´clock in the morning and I'd like to get back to sleep." I stared at her for one more minute just for the kicks of it. I did have to admit she was pretty hot. Mental self-five! When I saw she was gonna lash out again, I extended my arm and started fumbling through my nightstand until I got to my phone. I turned the screen over to see who it was and was instantly thankful she couldn´t answer it, because to take this call from this particular person, or office might be a better term for it, my finger print is needed. So I pressed my thumb to the home button of my phone and the phone instantly stopped ringing and started buzzing instead. "Thank God!" Said the girl, though I'm surprised she didn´t say it in Spanish. I answered the call and put the phone to my ear.

"Hello?" I said, even though I knew it didn´t matter if I said anything. But I had to keep up appearances so the girl wouldn´t suspect anything weird was going on.

"Agent Winters."Said the computerized voice every CIA operative knows will take them away from whatever business they´re attending to, and call them back to the George Bush Center for Intelligence (aka HQ). "An incident has occurred and your presence is required at Headquarters as soon as possible." That translates to: get your ass moving and come to HQ now. Oh, and my favorite part of all. "ETA?"That stands for Estimated Time of Arrival. But wait, you might say, how are you going to answer that without alerting the girl that you have to leave? Well, my friends, I don´t.

"I´ll be there in 20 minutes."I informed the machine. And not two seconds after, the line went dead. I turned around to see that the girl had already gotten back into bed and was fast asleep. So I got up and went to my closet. I opened it and took out the usuals: underwear and socks, from the second and third drawer; my regular black two piece suit, from the hanger; a white shirt, from the fourth drawer; and last but not least, I opened the first drawer of my closet and carefully picked out a tie that would go perfectly with my black suit. Wait, if it´s a black suit then it goes with everything but navy and brown (my ex, Macey, taught me that. According to her, it sometimes looked like I picked out what to wear with help from a wheel of fortune), so instead of over thinking it, I took one of the black thin ties by the left side and laid it all on a chair next to the bathroom and got in there for a quick shower. I was out of the apartment five minutes after I´d hung up the phone, so I raced to my car and turned on the engine.

"OK, you have fifteen minutes to get there."I said to myself through the rearview mirror. "You can do this."I put the car in reverse and hauled ass out of the parking lot and into the streets of Arlington at five past three in the morning.

I turned the engine off and I still had two minutes to spare. Another mental self-five! I got out of the car and walked through the almost full parking lot (which is not weird at all at this hour) to the entrance. I swiped my key card at the entrance's check point and went over to the reception desk. The girl seating behind it was blonde this week. They switched them out every week, for a reason I don´t care enough to ask. She was typing something into the computer when I reached her. I rang the little bell they had, just like the ones in hotels. She looked up from the screen, took one look at me and went back to her typing. She hit the Enter key and went for the phone. She put the combination *111 and put the phone to her ear. I heard mal voice greet her on the other end of the line. She didn´t return the greeting.

"Agent Winters is here, sir." This one was all business, apparently. Usually the receptionists were a lot nicer, but I guess they all got cranky at this time of the day. The male voice on the other end said something I couldn´t quite get and she said. "Yes, sir. He´ll be right up." She put the phone back in the receiver and turned back to her computer. "Second floor, conference room 4B."She said without even looking at me. So I took the hint: this girl didn't even wanna be told she looked nice, so I thanked her and went to the location I´d been given.

It took me a few minutes to get there, not because I didn´t know where the conference room was, but because it was on the other side of the building and it was a really long walk. I turned right for what felt like the sixth time and there it was: conference room 4B. I knocked on the door before going in (you know, manners before everything else).

"Come in!"Answered a male voice from the other side of the door. I assumed it was the same male voice the receptionist had talked to before. I turned the handle and went inside.

The first thing that caught my attention was the huge plate full of donuts and bagels in the middle of the long table that occupied most of the room´s space. The sudden sight of food made my stomach growl so loudly that I'm pretty sure Miss Cranky Pants heard it all the way from downstairs. I moved my eyes away from the food to the men sitting on the bottom seats at the farthest end of the table from me. One of them was sitting at the head of the table and the other two were on the seats to his right, one next to the other. I couldn´t really see their faces ´cause they were all looking at some files. So I closed the door behind me and cleared my throat. The man seating at the head of the table looked up and, to my surprise, I saw that it was none other than Joe Solomon, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I know him as Joe, my training agent. Joe´s a robust man in his mid-fifties, one of the youngest to achieve that position. His dark hair was already showing a few grey hairs and his green eyes were framed by little wrinkles one would only have noticed if you knew they weren´t there before (like I did). When he saw it was me, he smiled, making his wrinkles stand out even more. He closed the file he was looking at and leaned back in his chair.

"Preston Winters." He said, with a little smirk on his face. "How are you, son?"He asked me. I straightened up and crossed my hands in front of me, adopting the posture one should have when being in the presence of one of the most important men in the country.

"I´m good, sir. How are you?"I asked not making eye contact, but still looking at him. To be honest, no matter what position Joe occupied he was one of the most intimidating men I had ever met. Instead of answering my question, Joe laughed with one hand over his belly and motioned for me to sit down next to him, facing the other two agents.

"You know what I love most of these new position, Preston?" He asked me, but I had no idea what he wanted me to answer. "Really? Nothing?" He said with his eyebrows so high they were almost touching his entries, and all I could do was sit there and stare, with no clue what to do. That´s how nervous Joe made me, and by the way the other guys were seated, they were as anxious as I was. Joe leaned in and I did the same. "It´s how uneasy people get whenever they´re around me." He whispered and then burst out laughing. That´s one of Joe's most noticeable qualities: he was a very cheerful man. He went through a rough patch when his best friend (my friend´s dad, too) died, but other than that, he was always happy. He next cleared his throat and handed me the file he had been looking at when I got here. "If you´re hungry go ahead and take some." He said pointing at the pastries in the middle of the table.

"Will do, sir."And I finally did what every nerve in my body wanted to do: put five of those donuts in my plate and enjoy the hell out of them. I was done with them faster than I realized, so I took some coffee from the thermos that was next to the bagels. I was so hungry before I hadn´t even noticed it until I felt my eyelids were a little heavier than usual. It took only one sip for it to do it´s beautiful magic on me, and from one moment to the next, I was a machine. So I put the cup down and opened the file Joe had given me. In it were five sheets of paper. The first and second ones were the incident report from the hacking of one of our servers in the Pakistani office. It included the agents who detected the hacking, as well as the one who traced the IP address the hacker was using (which was none other than Jonas Parker, my nerdy best friend); the location of the IP address; and the files the hacker had gotten access to (which weren´t many, by the looks of it). The other three papers were profiles of three agents with their corresponding pictures, which matched the faces of the three agents on the room (the two guys in front of me, and I). According to the file, the one sitting closest to Joe was called Marshall Kramer, he was a former Army Ranger, had apparently just turned 28 and was very experienced in recovery missions. The guy sitting to his left was Robin Ryan, 29 and also very experienced, but in rescue missions. I wasn´t sure why Joe wanted him here, maybe he wanted to bring in the hacker alive. Weird. They usually just tell us to get there, make sure the hacker´s by himself and take them out. Joe interrupted my thoughts when he cleared his throat, took the remote for the TV hanging on the wall behind him and got up from his chair. He pressed the Power button on the remote and the TV went on. So this was gonna be a full briefing with a presentation and everything, Awesome! Those were my favorites.

"Alright, gentlemen."Started Joe. "Now that we´re all here, let´s get started." He pressed another button and a copy from the incident report in the file appeared on the screen. "A few hours ago two analysts in our office in Pakistan were uploading some files to their server when they saw a backdoor had been opened to gain access to their server. They reported it immediately and one of our analysts here in Langley was able to stop the hacking an also traced the IP address the intruder was using to access our server to this location." He pushed another button and a new image appeared on the screen. It was the map of an abandoned region of Pakistan, near the border with Iran, and its coordinates were: 29° 47' 99" N and 61° 59' 04"E. "Near the bordering city of Nok Kundi." He hit one last button and the three pictures from our profiles appeared on the screen. "You three have been task with apprehending the subject you find at that location and bring him back here so that he can be questioned." The three of us exchanged looks and then turned back to the screen. "You can get to know each other on the way there, it´s gonna be a wonderful 15 hour flight with no stops." He added. "There´s a car waiting to take you to the airport downstairs, so as soon as we´re done here you´ll go straight to the car. You´ll land on a non-regulated runway in Iran near the border, where you´ll get on a chopper and fly to the coordinates. The rest is up to your mission leader: Agent Winters." He finally explained, and I could tell that the others weren´t too keen with the idea of having the youngest agent of the three of us in charge. And apparently, Joe noticed too. "Of course, if you disagree with my decision, please tell me." He said, making himself look ever bigger than he did a second ago, knowing perfectly well no one in this room (and even in the entire building) would have the nerve to disagree with him and tell him to his face. Seeing his threat had worked perfectly, he turned off the TV and set the remote down on the table. "Alright then, good. Now get the hell out and be back here in 36 hours, if possible, less." We got up, each with file in hand, and proceeded to leave the briefing. But before I was out of the door, Joe called me back. "Hey, Preston!"So I turned around and waited for whatever it was Joe had to say to me. He looked like he was struggling to find the right words, until he finally seemed to have found them. He opened his mouth and the words I least expected to hear came out. "Good luck. And take another donut, you look like you need it." He added with a smirk on his face. A little smile escaped my mouth and felt myself blush a tiny bit at the encouraging words Joe gave me. So to relieve some of the tension that had built itself, I approached the donut plate and took two, instead of one, and got out of the room as quickly as I could. And as the door closed I heard the unforgettable laugh of Joe Solomon.

I spent the first two hours of the plane ride planning our strategy and coordinating the rest of the variables with HQ, like the direct line to an analyst so we would have eyes in both land and air, the equipment we´d be working with (guns, gear and gum, aka The Three Gs), etc. After I was done, I explained my entire plan to the other guys (who I could already tell didn't like me), and it practically made my day the fact that they both looked pretty impressed with what I'd come up with. Apparently, my genius plan made them realize that not even between the two, could they have coordinated such a simple yet brilliant plan of attack; which (luckily for me) didn´t backfire and made them hate me more, but inspired some respect from their part. When everyone knew the plan back and forth and what each was supposed to do, we still had eleven hours to spare, so I went back to my seat, strapped myself to it with the many belts it had and leaned my head on the headrest.

I started reviewing the plan in my head, and it suddenly hit me how similar it was to the ones Cammie would come up with, just fifteen minutes after having a mission assigned to her. Then again, 75% of every single one of her plans were inspired by movies or such and the other 25% was improvisation in the field, which caused her to be lectured every time something almost went wrong and she would completely blame it o the other parties involved, like a random security patrol or a problem with the intervention of the video circuit or something else that would take the accusing eyes away from her and in the direction she wanted. It was brilliant, but also a little irritating ´cause while she didn´t even get a spot on her record, if someone else did what she did they would´ve gotten suspension or something else, but not her ´cause she was The Chameleon and she did what a chameleon did best, blend in.

I could feel that our conversation in my dream was starting to get to me, or maybe it was the sleep deprivation, so I decided to doze off for a little while, just to be well rested and focused on the operation when we got to Iran in ten hours, more or less. With my head leaning on the seat´s head rest, I closed my eyes and prayed as hard as I could to not have the same dream I'd had last night.

My eyes flew open the moment the plane touched the ground, not because I´m a light sleeper (as one would assume given that it took me ten minutes to wake up and answer my phone), but because of all the shaking involved in landing on a clandestine runway (or any runway for that matter). I brushed my eyes with my hands to get the sleep out of them and started looking around. My team-mates were wide awake and in their field gear, so I grabbed the bag under my seat with my gear and started getting changed. When the plane started slowing down I went to join the guys at the back of it, where the rest of our equipment was. There was one trunk with two briefcases on top of it, so we opened the first one and each took one of the comms units in it. We turned them on and tested them to make sure they all worked. The second briefcase contained three pairs of night-vision goggles, which we would need because it was three in the morning here in Iran. Finally, we opened the trunk and it was no surprise to find three TAR-21s with six chargers (two for each gun). I would have preferred they´d given us some ACRs or UMP45s, maybe, ´cause those don´t jam so much when reloading, but as long as they got the job done, I was OK with whatever armament the agency provided for us.

When we were all geared up and ready to go I hit the button on the wall of the plane that opened its back door and walked over to the chopper waiting for us a few yards away from the plane. We hopped in and I signaled the pilot we were all set up and ready to leave. He turned a few switched and pressed a few buttons, and had us in the air in a trice. We had been flying for about thirty minutes when the pilot told me we were almost there, so I told the guys and asked HQ (through my comms) if we had a clear perimeter.

"Everything looks good for a 20 mile radius, Pres."Answered the nerdy voice that belonged to one of my best friends, Jonas Parker.

"Preston?"I said amused. "What are you doing here?" I asked, curious as to why one of the top CIA analysts was working on a simple recovery op.

"Joe assigned it to me." He said. "Said something about finishing what I´d started, I guess he was talking about me being the one who traced back the location of the hacker." He explained in the least cocky tone anyone could ever use. He would never be capable of such a horrible thing.

"Alright, then. Keep an eye on the skies for us, buddy."I said as I got out of my seat and hooked one of the rappelling ropes to my harness. Oh yeah, baby, we were gonna rappel down from the helicopter to a location that was 25 yards away from the targets safe house.

Once we were on the right spot, the pilot gave us a go and we left the comfort of the chopper´s ambience to go into the dark night of the outsides of Nok Kundi. After we unhooked the ropes from our belts, we put on our goggles and started approaching the target in a triangle formation, with Marshall on my four and Robin on my eight. When we reached the safe house´s door, I tried to open it and it didn´t offer any resistance. We went inside and saw that the little cabin was empty.

We could see a laptop on a coffee table in what I assumed was a living room. The whole cabin in fact had a kitchen and a bathroom behind a door on the east side of the place. I knew it was a bathroom ´cause I could hear water running on the other side, so I motioned the guys to be ready to apprehend the hacker as soon as he got out of the bathroom. I saw the doorknob start to turn and I prepared myself for the possibility of him trying to escape. But what came through that door knocked me so far off my game that I felt I'd frozen from the inside out, just like in my dream.

First, the hacker was a she instead of a he.

Second, she looked exactly like someone I knew (or used to know) and had the same tattoo in the lower abdomen Zach, Grant, Bex, Mace, Jonas, Liz and I had. It was our squad´s branch, our intertwined initials, but with a C for Cammie too.

And last, the person she looked like was the girl I´d thought dead for the past five years; the girl who had been my best friend for two years; the girl who dived head first into a mission without any precautions; the girl every agent had to beat to be the best.

The girl standing in front of me was Cameron Ann Morgan, aka Cammie "The Chameleon" Morgan.

* * *

That was Chapter #1! Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment and spread the word about this and the other fanfics you´re reading. We writers need all the support we can get! I´ll try to publish Chapter #2 sometime during next week.

Love,

venezueantiny12


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

*Grant´s POV*

I remember Mom and Dad showed me a picture once of the first time I´d seen my sister after she had been born. Dad took it in Mom´s room at the hospital. Mom was on the bed in a robe, smiling at the camera with a folded pink blanket in her arms, where Cammie was asleep. My ten month old little butt was sitting between my mom´s legs in a white baby shirt under a jean overall, but I wasn´t looking at the camera like Mom. No, I was staring at the tiny person sleeping in my mother´s arms. The tiny person who was usurping my sleeping spot. You couldn´t really see my expression in the photo, but Mom said that when she looked down after Dad took the picture she saw I was frowning as I stared at my little sister. She said it was probably because I couldn´t understand what that thing in my Mom´s arms was, and to this day I honestly can´t tell if that´s right or not. But anyways, my point is not what I was thinking but what my face wore, that frown. Because I'm pretty sure that the frown I had on the day I saw my sister for the first time after she had come to this world, my world, was the same frown I had on right now as I stared at my sister, this time through a one-way mirror, for the first time in five years after she had left this world, my world.

So apparently, I had this special frown I wore whenever I couldn´t understand what was going on in front of me. But to say that right now that I didn´t understand what was happening in my life, was a bit of an understatement.

6 Hours Earlier

My Mom always called at the most inconvenient of times: when I was proving my manhood to my coworkers, when I was about to go to sleep, or, her knew favorite, when I had the wonderful company of a "lady" at my place. We were about to start the day pretty happy with ourselves when the phone started ringing, and, this being the situation that it was, I knew the situation had been ruined by the fact that my mother was calling me. Seriously, I didn´t even have to look at the name of the caller to know it was my Mom because she is also the only person I know who calls people at 7 o´clock in the morning just for the kicks of it.

Actually, my sister Cammie did that too, I guess I know what inspired that horrible habit of hers. Really, the only one of us who liked that about her was Zach, our mutual brother from another mother. He said he, and I quote, "liked the fact that she started her day early and wanted everyone she knew to know about it". I know, it was irritating that he encouraged her to do it, but the guy had been in love with that girl since we were like twelve (not that he ever did anything about it), so he loved every single thing she did; except for putting herself in danger for the sake of a mission, he hated it when she did that. Not that I loved it either, but I knew that´s how she worked, you know? She got a mission and she did everything in her power to make it succeed. I still remember how Zach got when they told us she had gone missing: he was so mad you could literally see the rage radiate off of him, but when we were told they weren´t gonna look anymore, that they had given up on any hope that she was alive… Well, I have no idea how he got ´cause he disappeared. I mean, he stayed for the funeral and the commemoration ceremony, but right after that he was gone. Just gone. He didn´t answer when we called him or return said calls, but he did listen to our messages and read our texts.

He came back about a month later, but what came back wasn´t really Zach. Here´s the thing: Zach, Cammie and I were raised together. We went to the same schools, studied in the same curse, hung out all the time just the three of us (and the occasional boyfriend o girlfriend during high school), trained to become CIA agents together, the three of us practically lived together for two or so years. So when Cammie died, she took a very big part of us with her to wherever she went. Not only did every memory shared with her hurt, but thinking of all the memories we could´ve had was excruciatingly painful. And I´m not embarrassed to say that I´ve had some pretty excruciatingly painful moments in the past five years. They felt like that hole in Bella´s chest whenever she thought of Edward when he left in New Moon (yes, I read the Twilight books. Cammie made me. Oh, crap! There it is again!).

Pushing all my self-destructive thoughts to the back of my mind, I took my phone, stepped into the bathroom and answered Mom´s call.

"Mom!" I greeted her. "What a surprise! I didn´t expect a call from you this early in the morning." I said sarcastically. That´s the kind of mother&only-son-she-had-left relationship we had, we loved it. It was easy and comfortable, and it had been that way ever since… Well, it´s pretty obvious since when.

"Good morning, my beautiful cheesecake!" Yeap, she called me cheesecake. It´s because I really liked it when I was a kid and it´s all I ever wanted to eat. "How´d you sleep?" She asked in a bit of a tight tone, which was weird. She always had a response comment to my sarcasm, so I got worried right away.

"Mom, what´s going on?" I asked her directly ´cause I hated it when she was upset and wanted to see if I could do anything to fix it.

"Honey, I´m worried." She confessed a few seconds after. "Your father hasn´t come home in a few days and I don´t know what to think." I could hear her voice trembling and knew that she was fighting the urge to cry. "I mean, I know he´s probably slammed with work, but the last time this happened-"

"I´ll go see him right now, Mom." I blurted the second I guessed the direction she was going with this. "I´m gonna take a quick shower and I'll be at his office in fifteen minutes." I explained to her and heard her let out the breath she was holding through the phone. "So expect my call in twenty minutes, OK?" I added for her sake of mind.

"O-OK, honey. Thank you." She said after taking a few deep breaths. It hurt so much listening to her be this disturbed.

"No problem, Mom. Look, everything´s gonna be just fine, OK? I promise." I reassured her. "Hey, why don´t you have a tea or something while you wait for me to call you back?" I suggested, knowing that the only thing that could calm my mother down was a nice hot cup of tea.

"Yes, sweetie, I-I´ll do that." She said, and I heard her give a hew snorts.

"I love you, Mom." I finally said before hanging up and practically jumping in the shower. I got out two minutes later and put on some casual clothes instead of the regular suit and tie required to go to the office, but as I wasn´t going on any official business I didn´t see the need. And I hoped they wouldn´t either at the office. As I was opening the door to leave I heard my bedroom door open behind me.

"Where are you going?" Asked Tina Walters, the girl I´d brought home last night and every other night I needed a release. She and I had this "arrangement" in which we would sleep with each other anytime the other needed it. You could say we were friends with benefits, except for the tiny little detail that Tina wasn´t my friend (or anything close to it, for that matter). In fact, I kind of hated her. She was the agency´s own private gossip girl and with that job came the automatic disliking from everyone she spread rumors about (I was one of those people). But to tell the truth, she was crazy good in the sack and left me pretty satisfied with myself after we were done, so I turned a blind eye on her attitude for one night every now and then.

"To the office." I answered, grabbing my keys, my wallet (and making sure my ID was in there) and a jacket. January was coming to an end and that meant February was about to begin, so the weather would go from holy-shitballs-it´s-cold cold to hell´s-about-to-freeze-over cold.

"You got called in?" She asked while starting a pot of coffee. She also liked to make herself comfortable at my place, while I ran out of hers as soon as we were over to avoid conversation.

"No, it´s a personal visit." I said, and saw the way she stiffened and relaxed at my words. She had her back to me, but when she turned around her eyes were about to pop out of her skull and had a weird expression in her face, kind of like that face you make when you´re about to get your food at a restaurant.

"Why? Did something happen?" Oh. My. God. This woman had a problem, a serious problem. Her brain automatically shifts to gossiping mode whenever she assumed there was something out of the ordinary happening. I admit I shouldn´t have said it was something personal because (and I say this without any offense intended to her ass), what did her prying sorry ass care why I was going to the office? I´ll tell you: because gossip is all her brain looks for in a conversation! Seriously, it´s a very big pain. Anyway, instead of telling her where she and her gossip could go (somewhere where they´ll both be welcomed with open arms), I turned round and walked out of the apartment heading to the parking lot of my building.

I still couldn´t believe Tina when I got in my car, but I quickly remembered why I was getting into my car in the first place and completely forgot about Tina and her gossip. Instead, I started thinking about what my mom had told me: how my father hadn´t come home in days. But what could keep him in the office for so long? World War III? An agent down? Was the President shot or something? OK, that last one couldn´t have happened or it would be all over the news. And besides, Tina would have told me matter-of-factly.

Actually, there were a lot of stuff that could keep someone in the office for two days, or maybe even three. But like Mom said: the last time Dad didn´t go home for a few days… Let´s just say it wasn´t good. So I turned on the engine and drove over to Bush Center, set on putting an end to my mom´s worries.

While I was looking for a free parking spot at the agency´s lot, I passed through the spot my father´s car had assigned (to make sure he was there) and it was just where it had to be, between the Deputy Director´s and entrance. I finally found one and maneuvered my way into it. Honestly, some agents´ driving skills only worked while being in a speed chase. I got through the check-point and headed for the elevators, ignoring the waves and Hellos my fellow agents greeted me with. I was on a mission (maybe not an official one, but it might as well be) and nothing was gonna distract me from it.

I hit the up button on the wall next to the main elevator and waited for the doors to open. When they did, I rushed inside and pressed the button that signaled the fifth floor (where my father´s office was and where I was ultimately headed). Before the doors closed I saw that someone was waving at me to hold the elevator for them. I wasn´t gonna do it (in fact, I was gonna push the close doors button), but I saw who was waving and I just couldn´t do it.

"Ah, thank you, Grant." Said Liz Sutton, one of my oldest friends here. She had transferred to the NSA (as an analyst, of course) four or so years ago and I almost didn´t get to see her, except on days like this when she came to visit her fiancé: Jonas Parker, another old friend and also an analyst (they were the perfect couple). She pressed the button with the number 3 on it, so I knew that´s what she´d come for.

"No problem." I answered. "You gonna talk to Jo about the wedding?" I asked her.

"Oh God, no!" She breathed out. I guess I appeared surprised at her answer ´cause she quickly tried to explain. "I mean, it´s not that your assumption for my visit is Ludacris," I should add that Liz liked to use terms that were a little out-of-date for our generation in her attempts to be *air quotes* cooler, "because we are planning our wedding. But I'm not here for that, we're just gonna spend the day together." She finished.

"You guys are the cutest, you know?" I teased, knowing that when anyone complemented their relationship she´d flush all the way to her forehead, which made her even cuter! Suddenly, the elevator stopped and a little bell rang as the doors opened and revealed the dark hallways of the third floor, aka: Nerdsville.

"Oh, this is me!" Said Liz, she gave me one of those awkward handshakes of hers and stepped out of the elevator. I watched her make her way to Jonas´s office and just as the elevator doors closed, she turned around and locked eyes with me. I don´t really know what was going on inside that genius head of hers, but I know exactly what was going on in her look. Pity. The look she had on right now is the same look I'd been getting for the past five years. Mom got it too, but she never really mind. I, on the other hand, couldn´t stand it. All my closest friends knew that. So why was Liz giving me that look? Maybe it´s the look they always give me when they think I´m not looking? Is that why she turned around? Because she thought I wasn´t looking?

The elevator doors opened again and I was on the fifth floor. I got my head back on what I'd come here to do and went straight to my father´s office. I had to turn my fair share of corridors to get there, because his office was one of the most secure and hidden in the building. But it´s customary for the Director of the CIA's office to insure the security of its owner. And when they started the headquarters' construction, they thought the best way to do that was to put the office in the middle of a maze of corridors.

Seriously, I can´t remember how many times I got lost here whenever I came to visit my father after he got the promotion.

Finally, I turned to my left one last time and saw the big oak double doors that gave way to my father´s office. I jogged the last piece of distance between me and that door and went to greet his secretary, but Alan wasn´t there. That´s weird. When isn´t Alan here? His entire job consisted of waiting for my father to tell him what to do, and to do that he had to be out here, waiting. Where could he be?

I shook my head. "Don´t deviate." I told myself. "Get in there and find out what´s going on. Who cares where Alan is?" I finished my own pep talk and put my knuckles to the door. I took a deep breath and knocked. I don´t know why I was so nervous but somehow the answer from the other side of the door telling me to come in made me more relaxed than all the deep breaths I'd taken in the past minute to calm my nerves.

I put my hand on the door handle, pushed it and let the door open. As soon as I could fit my body through I went into the office and closed the door behind me. I leaned back on the door and took in the sight in front of me: Joe Solomon resting his elbows on his desk with his head in his hands and tons of opened files in front of him.

So this is what my father (or more accurately, my stepfather) had been doing for the past days: working on paperwork? I knew that Joe had always been a workaholic, but this was a little overkill. I mean, he probably hadn´t answered any of Mom´s calls because of whatever he was working on. And he should know not to do that.

"Is this why you haven´t gone home in days?" I asked him, hoping that all the anger I´m feeling is reflected in my tone. "Mom´s been worried sick." I added, but still can´t get a reaction from him. Could he be asleep? "You know what happened the last time her husband didn´t come home for days." I said as I felt my eyes water and my voice break a little at the end. I was about to say something else when he finally looked up at me and all my anger faded and was replaced with pity and worry.

Joe looked awful. His eyes were red and puffy, but also had dark circled under them. He looked pale and he had a very developed stubble. His hair looked even greyer since the last time I'd seen him, which was like two weeks ago, and it was standing on every side. I think I´d only seen Joe like this twice, and both times were separated by six months. The first time was when Cammie disappeared (Joe was her godfather, you see). And the second, that was six months after my sister, when Dad died. He had been in a mission and the other guys caught up to him, and didn´t even give him time to reach for his gun before putting a bullet in his head and two in his heart.

This was a touchy subject for me too. I mean, my dad and my sister died within six months and the only difference between Cammie´s and Dad´s death was that I think we knew that was ready to die if it came down to that, but not Cammie. She was 20 and he was 53.

For my family, 2011 was the worst year of our lives.

Joe and my dad were as tight as I am with Zach. Just like us, they grew up together, went to school together, trained to be agents together. Hell, they even fell for the same girl: Rachel Cameron, my mom. She chose to marry Matthew, my dad, and even though it broke Joe´s heart they still remained friends. When Dad died, Mom leaned on Joe and vice versa, and I guess they fell in love with each other, I don´t know. Anyhow, they got married two years after and have been pretty happy from my view. I have to add that if Mom had had to get married again I wouldn´t have picked anybody but Joe. That´s why I don´t think of him as my stepfather, but as my father. I know, it´s confusing.

He looks at me with his tired eyes and seems to be pondering whether to do seething or not. After he´s done he says, "Wait a minute while I call her and tell her I'm fine, OK?" He ran a hand through his messy hair and leaned back on his chair. He took a deep breath and reached for the phone. I heard the buttons as he dialed their home number and saw him put the phone to his ear. "Hi, honey… I know, I´m sorry… I got caught with a lot of paperwork… You´re right, I should´ve called, I´m so sorry you got worried… Thanks for sending Grant… Listen, I need you to come to the office… Everything´s good, but I need to show you something… I´ll see you in a bit, then… I love you… Bye." He put the phone down and leaned back against his chair. He closed his eyes for a second and stood up, shrugged on his jacket and grabbed some files from the desk. "Grant, could you help me?" He asked, and waved to the files in his hand.

"Sure." I said and instantly took them from him.

"Do I look good?" He asked me. I gave him a weary look that would hopefully make him realize he does not. He understood what my look meant, so he opened one of the drawers of his desk and pulled out some wipes. He used one to clean his face and even I could see how much it helped. "How ´bout now?" He wondered and I gave him a thumbs up. "Great! Let´s go." He said and started making his way towards the door motioning me to follow him.

"Where are we going?" I asked him, juggling with the files I was carrying and trying my best to keep them from falling to the floor.

"There´s something I gotta show you." He said dryly as we make our way through the corridors towards the main elevators.

"Is it the same thing you told Mom you had to show her?" I asked wondering what in the world could be so important that he had to show it to both Mom and me.

"Jackpot, Superman." He answered. It had been a long time since he called me that. You see, he used to call Cammie, Zach and I by members of the Justice League of America. Cammie was Wonder Woman, Zach was Batman, and I was Superman. I stunned me for little that he called me that, since it brought so many memories back, but I had some practice with getting my composure back when things like that happened. So I didn´t give it much thought and kept walking.

When we finally got to the elevators, Joe pushed the call button and the doors instantly opened. We stepped in and I asked Joe what floor we were going to.

"Sublevel Three." He said.

I pushed the button with the S3. "So, who´s the lucky criminal that´s getting a warm visit today?" I asked. The sublevels were one of the most secure parts of the facilities. Sublevel One is where the CIA´s servers are kept and guarded, it´s rows and rows of computer after computer that allow us to have all the intel and security and such that we have. Sublevel Two is the archives room; it´s where we keep everything on paper and not inside a computer. And last, but not least, Sublevel Three is our own personal prison; there we hold the international criminals the State doesn´t seem equipped to handle, so we do. It´s also were some of those horrible torture techniques the CIA is known for are sometimes done.

After a few seconds in deep thought, Joe answered. "Oh, it´s someone who´s been off the radar for quite a while, and we finally found her."

"That´s it?" I asked, a little annoyed with his vague answer. "No name or anything?"

"You´ll know in a minute." Again with the vague answers. "What´s your hurry?" He asked me, as if _I_ was the one acting annoyingly.

I shut up and we rode the rest of the way in silence, so I started rummaging to the files in my hands. One of them was about recovery mission that had taken place three days earlier. Three agents- one of them was my boy Preston- had gone to the outskirts of Pakistan to apprehend a hacker who had infiltrated our servers over there. The mission had been successful and the file also had mission reports from all the agents involved. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with the file, so maybe it was all in the statements from the agents. I started reading Preston´s ´cause his was the only one that would´ve been written as I would´ve written it- since we always helped each other out with our reports at the beginning of our careers. The first two paragraphs were about logistics of the mission: the other two, about what actually happened during the mission; and the last one, was our personal take on the mission. I knew Preston would follow the same structure we had been using for the past seven years, so I skipped the first two and just read what had happened. They were briefed, they got on a plane, got geared up and approached the targets location. They got in and waited for the target to get out of the bathroom and when she came out-.

"What the fuck?" I said out loud. This couldn´t be right. This said that Cammie- that she was- that she is not- "Explain this to me, Joe. NOW!" I demanded. What kind of report was _this_? "What is Preston playing at? Is this some sick joke?" I asked as I felt the file trembling in my hands.

"It´s not a joke." Said Joe with the most sincere look in his eyes. In fact, it was bordering pitiful. The elevator _dinged_ and its doors opened up to the gray hallways of Sublevel Three. "She´ll explain it better that I can." He said and then stepped out of the elevator. I followed him in a kind of trance. I couldn´t believe this was happening or what was happening- for a better choice of words. In front of me, Joe opened a door on our right and walked through it with me at his heels.

We were in the observation room, where you could look at the interrogation being conducted on the other side of the one-way mirror. I put the files on the table at the back of the room and turned to the other room, and I felt my jaw hit the floor.

I remember Mom and Dad showed me a picture once of the first time I´d seen my sister after she had been born. Dad took it in Mom´s room at the hospital. Mom was on the bed in a robe, smiling at the camera with a folded pink blanket in her arms, where Cammie was asleep. My ten month old little butt was sitting between my mom´s legs in a white baby shirt under a jean overall, but I wasn´t looking at the camera like Mom. No, I was staring at the tiny person sleeping in my mother´s arms. The tiny person who was usurping my sleeping spot. You couldn´t really see my expression in the photo, but Mom said that when she looked down after Dad took the picture she saw I was frowning as I stared at my little sister. She said it was probably because I couldn´t understand what that thing in my Mom´s arms was, and to this day I honestly can´t tell if that´s right or not. But anyways, my point is not what I was thinking but what my face wore, that frown. Because I'm pretty sure that the frown I had on the day I saw my sister for the first time after she had come to this world, my world, was the same frown I had on right now as I stared at my sister, this time through a one-way mirror, for the first time in five years after she had left this world, my world.

So apparently, I had this special frown I wore whenever I couldn´t understand what was going on in front of me. But to say that right now that I didn´t understand what was happening in my life, was a bit of an understatement. Because in a matter of minutes, my sister had passed from being a name on the Wall of the Fallen and an empty grave to a live breathing human being sitting in a chair with her head on the table and her hands covering it.

"Get in there." Said Joe, though I wasn´t looking at him I knew he was angry just because of the tightness in his voice. "Talk to her and let her explain." He ordered. Remember that trance I was in when I left the elevator? Well, I was still in it. So I did as told and opened the door on our right. I hadn´t been in the same room as my sister in five years, and I had no idea how much I missed it until was in this one right now. Though it wasn´t like before, comfortable and easy; this time it was chilly and… awkward. I didn´t know what I should do- which wasn´t the case before because she was always the one who had the first reaction but her head was still on the table and her hands were still covering it- so I cleared my throat, her head snapped up and my breath got caught in my throat.

Her hair was a mess, tangled and ruffled up, but it was still the same blonde as it was five years ago. Her eyes were red and puffy, as if she´d been crying, but they still had their cornflower blue color, though it didn´t look as vivid as before, it was sort of- well, off. Her nose was also red, confirming my suspicions about her having cried, but nothing about it seemed physically different. Her lips were chapped- which told me something was wrong because she would´ve never let them get like that. Then again she was supposed to be dead, so _obviously_ something was very wrong.

I was about to say something when she beat me to it.

"Grant?" What the fuck was wrong with her voice? It was raspy and deep, not light and animated like it was before. "You´re wondering what´s wrong with my voice aren´t you?" _Fucking_ mind reader. How could she possibly know that _that´s_ what I was thinking about? "That´s the first thing Joe asked me when I spoke to him, so… apparently my voice is different. I don´t hear it though, but my throat does feel a little weird. That could be from the non-stop crying I've been engaging in the past two days so it probably hasn´t got anything to do with it." Was she rambling? Cammie never rambled. She was always smooth and cool. As if she´d realized what she´d been doing she closed her eyes for a while and opened them again.

"Did you just ramble?" I couldn´t stop myself from asking. Unbelievable. Five years without talking to her and _that´s_ what comes out of my mouth first. _Smooth._ The corners of her mouths turned up a little and her eyes were briefly filled with… humor, maybe? She looked at her hands and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"Yeah, Joe said I dad that as well." She looked thoughtful for a moment before she collected herself again. "So… is there anything you wanna know specifically or should I just tell you everything from the beginning?" She asked and her eyes bore into mine. I had to look away.

"Tell me everything, please." I requested.

"Did you have breakfast? ´Cause it´s a pretty long story." She said.

"I´ll bring you both something to eat." Said Joe´s voice from behind me, and she heard it too ´cause she thanked him right after.

"Well, bro. Get comfortable. You´re about to step into what has been my life for the past five years, and I don´t think you´ll e able to take it if you don´t sit down."

I crossed the room. Took a seat in front of her and took a deep breath, getting ready to hear her.


End file.
